Section 5

The General Division of the High Court shall not entertain an action in personam to enforce a claim to which this section applies unless —

The General Division of the High Court shall not entertain an action in personam to enforce a claim to which this section applies until any proceedings previously brought by the plaintiff in any court outside Singapore against the same defendant in respect of the same incident or series of incidents have been discontinued or otherwise come to an end.

Subsections (1) and (2) shall apply to counterclaims (not being counterclaims in proceedings arising out of the same incident or series of incidents) as they apply to actions in personam, but as if the references to the plaintiff and the defendant were respectively references to the plaintiff on the counterclaim and the defendant to the counterclaim.

Subsections (1) to (3) shall not apply to any action or counterclaim if the defendant thereto submits or has agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the General Division of the High Court.

Subject to subsection (2), the General Division of the High Court shall have jurisdiction to entertain an action in personam to enforce a claim to which this section applies whenever any of the conditions specified in subsection (1)(a) to (c) are satisfied.

The Rules of Court relating to the service of process outside the jurisdiction shall make such provision as may appear to the rule‑making authority to be appropriate having regard to subsection (5).

The claims to which this section applies are claims for damage, loss of life or personal injury arising out of a collision between ships or out of the carrying out of or omission to carry out a manoeuvre in the case of one or more of 2 or more ships or out of non‑compliance, on the part of one or more of 2 or more ships, with the collision regulations.

In this section —

“collision regulations” means the regulations made under section 100(2)(h) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and any regulations made under subsection (1) of section 41 of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Act 1996 for or in respect of any of the matters mentioned in paragraph (d) of that subsection;

“inland waters of Singapore” includes any part of the sea adjacent to the coast of Singapore certified by the Minister to be waters falling by international law to be within the territorial sovereignty of Singapore apart from the operation of that law in relation to territorial waters;

“port of Singapore” means any place or places and any navigable river or channel leading into such place or places declared to be the port under section 3 of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Act 1996 and “the limits of the port” means the limits thereof as defined in the declaration.